Badger bulldozes Delavan-Darien

LAKE GENEVA—Lake Geneva Badger head coach Matt Hensler generally doesn’t do much smiling during football games. But even Hensler couldn’t help but crack a smile or two while his team unloaded a dominating 62-13 victory over Delavan-Darien here Friday evening.

Badger (5-1) scored 55 unanswered points en route to maintaining its first place lead in the Southern Lakes Conference race. With a win next week at Wilmot, the Badgers can clinch a share of the conference championship.

“I was very pleased with our effort against Delavan-Darien,” Hensler said. “Our kids played hard from the beginning, which is something we teach, so overall I’m pretty darn proud of our kids and their effort.”

The Badgers’ effort was evident on the opening drive of the game when they needed just three plays to find the end zone. Andrew Cychner capped the short drive with a blistering 47-yard touchdown run.

The Comets, behind Jacob Benzing’s 76-yard return to the Badger 20 on the ensuing kickoff, quickly put themselves in position to answer. Jesse Collins quickly capitalized on the short scoring drive with a 9-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to 7-6

Delavan-Darien’s momentum, however, was short-lived.

Lake Geneva took the game over from there, scoring the game’s next 55 points. Austin Borst added two touchdown runs of 1 and 7 yards, while Matt Reynolds, Collin Broderick, and Andrew Allen added touchdown runs of 1, 3 and 2 respectively to lead the home team to a 41-6 halftime lead.

“They (Delavan-Darien) did a good job defensively right away confusing us a little bit with some of the blitzes and slants,” Hensler said. “But we were able to sit down on the bench and draw it up, and once they got done being confused, I thought our offensive line played pretty well.”

Hensler’s impressive offensive line, which helped the Badger runners rack up 396 rushing yards, didn’t let up in the second half.

Thomas Ritzman racked up touchdown runs of 6 and 15 yards in the third to make it 55-6. Sophomore quarterback Isaac Vogel added one final touchdown run of 11 yards before Benzing stopped the scoring run with a 97-yard kickoff return late in the fourth quarter.

But it was too little, too late for the Comets.

“I’m happy where we’re at as a team,” Hensler said. “But we have to continue to get better, and I think tonight was a big step in the right direction.”